, 1887-10-15
THE OLD FASHIONED WAY.
Herbs Given for Ailments-women in
Council Over the sick-Good Nursing.

Herbs Given for Ailments-women in
Council over the sick-Good Nursing.
All women believe in herbs. Men, at
least, pretend not to. But it is a part of
manhood to laugh at us and our notions;
but l notice that John is always ready to
take, or even call for, a decostion of
some of my fragrant punches when he
gets under the weather. In the spring of
the year a bowl of boneset tea is sure to
be needed, and it saves doctors bills. 1
know they laugh at it and wish instead
that 1 shall take a thirty-third dilution of
deadly aconite or n~ightshade. l do not
see why we should throw away innocent
herbs for rank poisons, or why mineral
drugs should be more honorable or safe
than vegetable. So l shall cling to my
old fashioned ways and have faith in the
virtues of hyssop and mint. Heaven help
us! but am afraid to have their poisons
growing in my beds of flowers lest a child
will chew one of them and die.
1 am just old enough to remember n
or two old style kitchens-twenty feet
square and full to the muzzle Of good
things. The ceiling was low-only over
. tall mans head-an6 you should see
how the great beams were hung with
apples en- strings, and punches Of parsley,
and dill, and mullen, and rue, and
savory, and minis, and saffron, and
tansy, and a dozen more of natures heal
ers. 1t was around an enormous Chin
ney, eight feet square, l think-and the
odors were as sweet as the smell of the
doughnuts that were SKINNED from the
lard, in the big kettle, that swung on q
crane over the backlog. Have l owned
too much as to my age? Awoman must
80 L,-a - .--sa-N An-~. GOT Il
cannot help it. l do remember those
herbs, and days of herbs, with delight
all but the cookies with carroway seeds
in them. 1 preferred fennel-and now
people will have neither one nor the
other.
In those days doctors bills were never
allowed to swallow up a farm and turn
folks out of doors. The grandmother was
chief doctor, and her experience was con-
sidered authority; but all the women in
the neighborhood held council, and zach
one advised and preecribed. So it hap
pened one was well purged, and some
times terribly dosed. If one dose did not
do the thing, another would. First one,
then the other. We had in our family
the castor oil party, and the salts party,
and when one of us had indiscreetiy loaded
in too many plums, she was sure to have
to swallow both salts and oil. So much
for parties and sects. And when one has
down pennyroyal and rhubarb and SIENNA
and cherry bark, who is to tell which 1t
is does the work? If one did but get well,
the glory of it was enough to go round,
and eaoh would claim the success; but if
the patient died, who, indeed, was to
blamep 1t was the other party's medicine
that did it.
But it was the nursing that did the
curing in those days. l would gladly be
sick once moro if l could again feel the
touch of that soft hand smoothing my
pillows. If l should live 1000 years
there will never be a sensation 30 good
as that-the mothers hand. All other
hands are more or less selfish, but the
hand of a mother brings in it the whole
soul. And the smell of those lavender
and sweet clover sheets and pillowsl o
could disease face such love and sweet
nessl But there were then no diphtherias
and a hundred more sicknesses of modern
invention. There were measles and
mumps and chicken pox for everybody.
We went to school to learn spelling and
catch the regulation diseases. Then the
right herbs were sure to be on hand to
cure them. They had faith, too, in those
days-if not in Mother Eddy, at least in
the real mother who bore them and nursed
them.
Many plants give us health by the
smell, rs well as by taking them into the
stomach. But dogs and cats find common
grass to have medicinal qualities. Before
a rain Roger and Bess will nibble quaint
ties of grass; and it is one of the best
weather signs. Our own health is
affected quite as much, by what we in
hale as by what we imbibe. Pine woods
give us invigorating odors. Many of the
garden flowers give us ozone, which we
breathe and get strength-f from. But the
garden herbs are especially valuable in
the same way. l confess that what 1
olors. A crushed handful of peppermint
or p~ennyroyal, or summer savory, or even
horse mint, is delightful.
Every autumn l go on several herb ex-
cursions, and if it happens, l do not hest
tate to gather a few roots as well. Null
Inns l must have for drafts. Boneset is
invaluable for jaundice. Every American
is entitled to get bilious. 1t is a preroga-
tive of all pie and pork eaters. Then he
must have his thoroughwort tea. For
a stouter bitter it is well to have
NORWOOD in the house. Peppermint
and catnip are specific for collie. Black
berry roots are the best of remedies for
diarrhea and choleraic difficulties. This
Is charming to be ones own doctor; to
learn the sympathy of each part of the
body for special vegetable growths.
Mary E. Spencer in Globe-D Democrat.